GalCiv III: Labor Day Coding Extravaganza!

GalCiv III: Labor Day Coding Extravaganza!

This weekend I will be working on the big update to GalCiv III and GalCiv III Crusade. My work focuses heavily on balance so if you have any particular exploits or balance issues you'd like me to look into...

I'd like to see the Ai go after the protected anomalies a bit more. They never do thus end game I am spiraling in power leaving them behind. That would go a bit in getting the ai to be 'beefier' as we approach mid to late game.

With Mercenaries installed, if you take The Anvil it more or less lets you insta-win the game. It gives you a weapon for which there is no defense. While I do enjoy trouncing the galaxy on the highest difficult levels, some would consider this an exploit.

AI will happily trade for new expensive weapon techs, but doesnt appear to use them as weapons on new ships still lower than single value of high value weapons like Disruptors / AM missiles - even when I gift them Elerium/ antimatter they don't use it but leave it in their stockpile and continue to build ships with rubbish weapons.

I noticed some of the skills that reduce manufacturing costs don't work. The hive and second manufacturing one comes to mind immediately (Construction Optimization -> Efficient Manufacturing). I saved the game, researched them, then checked after they were done and my manufacturing costs stayed the same for all buildings. I'm not sure if this is just a tooltip error, or if there is no actual benefit to these skills right now. I'm playing 2.33 with no expansions.

I have a big problem with the way AI responds to culture. They are absolutely terrible at preventing you from taking them over through culture. I usually play on "Gifted" setting, and I was able to take over the galaxy without ever being declared war on once.

The AI is terrible at managing their ships. They should be better at making fleets.

Defense is far too expensive. If you do the math, you are better off with an empty ship 'tanking' than fitting it with defenses. There are a few exceptions, but in general, you are better off spamming medium or large ships for tanking. Defense helps with attrition, but that's about it. You're better off with an empty ship, or another attack ship considering the cost.

There is no where near enough Elerium on maps. I don't know why this resource is so scarce compared to the others, but it kinda screws some playstyles over (including the ability to effectively use beam weapons - since the upgraded versions use it). You can fit a bunch of ships with the kinetic upgraded weapon because of the abundance of Durantium, and almost the same for Missiles, but not beam weapons.

I think speed and possibly range should scale with map size. It doesn't make sense to have a 6 speed constructor on a tiny map and that same constructor on a massive or insane map. At the end game, you end up wasting half a ship's capacity just on drives. Likewise, this makes defense way too powerful - since they can make ships that counter you, AND don't waste half their capacity on warp drives. By time you reach them, they will have a fleet that counters yours, and is more capacity efficient, meaning you lose and the turtler wins (culture, research, ascension victories). I suggest having a passive +x% global speed depending on the map. It doesn't have to be a lot mind you - after all the point of larger maps is to have more space and time, but as it stands, speed does not scale at all compared to map size.

Governors should have a culture option. They don't always terraform tiles even though you tell them to.

United Planets vote should not be voided if someone defies it. The effect voted for should still go through, but the people in defiance won't be affected.

Tourism is useless. Way too little credits for the costs (space, research). Global credit bonuses are always strictly better than just tourism ones, which is bad, because they compete with each other for R&D and tile space.

The Terran/Generic talent trees should have something extra in them, like the other races do. Right now, there is literally no benefit to picking those trees compared to say the Thalan, who have the same building bonuses, plus extras like Hives and Hyperion Matrix. The balanced ones should probably get a +5% bonus on all their base buildings, so instead of 15% production/research, 10% wealth, it becomes 20% / 15%. For influence maybe go from 1 -> 1.5 base for consulate. That, or give them more tech like the other tress have.

Games take too long to finish. You get to the point where you know you will win, but have to grind it out for another 50-100 turns. If you have more power rating than all your opponents combined, you should have the option to ask for them to concede. That way games will actually finish, instead of being abandoned.

As someone already mentioned, the AI is horrible at movement speed. Even late game, they might have a ship that only goes 2 or 3 tiles / week. This makes them completely irrelevant, as they will never reach your ships or planets in time to be a threat.

Alright, so I ended up writing a lot more than intended. Obviously you don't have the time to fix all of these concerns, but I hope you take note of them none-the-less. I'm not sure how you plan on balancing the game when there are two (maybe 3) different versions of it, but good luck.

You mentioned, you wanted to rebalance the population to production (pop-to-prod) curve and nothing since. If you do/start this over the weekend, keep in mind, that production got buffed with crusade:- in vanilla one point of prodcution meant 1 point was distributed between manufacturing (civil and military), research and credits- in crusade one point of production gives one to each of the four above.Depending on how much one values credits and the economy wheel, one can argue, that in crusade one point of production is 3 to 4 imes as strong as in vanilla. Hence, if you return to linear pop to production, I suggest using a value of .25 to .333 as multiplier in the formula, not one.(Btw, this is also why asteroids feel so strong in crusade compared to vanilla, but I think they should be kept as is, until pop-to-prod is settled and tested by players)

Make the AI counter jamming with Accuracy increasing tech and components in their ships.

Fix attack speed (AS) stacking.Quick-and-dirty way: change components, that grant a lot of AS, to grant % damage insteadThorough way: I presume in the unit class there is only a stat weapon cooldown (CD) (for each type). Furthermore I presume the sum of attackspeed boosts is tracked in a variable AS at some point in the code. Then CD is modified according to: CD' = CD*(1-AS)change this formula to CD'=CD/(1+AS)This causes all attackspeed boosts to stack in a linear (non-divergent) way and you never again have to worry about combinations of attack speed boosts, like missile weapons research (20% AS), non-ressource booster (25% AS) and high tier booster (50% AS). If you add those up, you get: CD'=CD*(1-0,95) = CD/20, which means the weapon fires twenty times faster and missiles become the highest, range, highest attack speed and highest damage weapon type.

Arguably the above could also be applied to evasion. I presume the unit class has a variables EV (for evasion) and weapon accuracy WA (for each type). The hit probability PH is calculated by: PH = max(10% ,WA - EV). Instead the formula should go: PH = WA/(1 + EV)

These are the most fundamental issues I see. Once pop-to-prod is settled, you should also take a look at treasure hunt. I have found it is easily the most efficient way to accumulate credits.

Many of the Mercs could use a balance pass, in my opinion. A few are completely broken, like the one that increase base influence (Auspicious Start in particular, Lutitia less so due to the additional influence per turn). Several should be re-classified as support (Hivebase One, Bitte, Erragis, Heptium, Gestalt, Sidrat, Compact, Lutitia, Linked Aerie) because they do not appear to be intended as frontline warships while others should be moved from support to escort or capital because they do appear to be (Raptor, Nail, Bludgeon, Sabre, Fist of the Sun, Retribution, Scow, Cixma, Fissure). Others have conflicts with their descriptions (Pursuit has "powerful prototype missiles", but beam attack value is higher) or conflicting values for attack/defense/hitpoints (Derr ignores 75% of incoming damage but only has 1hp, Straisor has highest attack value period, but it's a planet boost ability). A lot of the planet boost mercs in the later tiers actually have much better attack values than the warship types. As an aside, my instant win button is the Shaout, as soon as I get that I can erase the board with the double range and high rate of fire.

I point this out because I thoroughly enjoy using my mercs in every game, to the point that I used Old-Spider's post to mod in all the mercs in every game.

Adding a vertical line that separate the 2 civilisations in the trade bar when these two have the same color will be a good thing. When you play with 70+ civilisations on the bigger map zise, it happen at every played game.

I'd like to see the Ai go after the protected anomalies a bit more. They never do thus end game I am spiraling in power leaving them behind. That would go a bit in getting the ai to be 'beefier' as we approach mid to late game.

Totally support this comment from Larsenex.

As much as I'm enjoying Gal Civ III Crusade, which I'd say is one of the best expansions ever, I'm still annoyed by the AI. Refer here for some other actionable AI suggestions.

Even if the ai likes you i noticed from the turn time on techs wont give you a deal.

The krynn cleric increases 100% influence per level.

Do you really plan to start the krynn with so many administrators.

The carbon based need to have farming to be 0.1 per turn food at some point. Otherwise the silicoln have more of an advantage.

Personally 1 think 1 point of production per person is to much cant you see if they would one half instead.

Not liking some of the hubs. I think their to weak. They were better in the base. I really dont like getting a ship building, or a social hub with only one building. At least those two need buildings. Even going back more like two where you neededto research better as you go.

I noticed their are no buildings for the thulium resource. There are only 2 wonders, and no buildings for the anti matter resource. There is only one wonder, and no buildings for elurim. I have seen a number of planetary resources that arent being used as resources for anything. There is no point building the kimberlies refuge if you are silicoln.

Pragmatic ideology 50 percent trade value to minors is useless if i cant trade with them.

I heard that the aquatic trait that has no penalty is overpowered. I heard that the xenophobic trait is overpowered. Possible solution penalise colony modules more. I noticed if you customised your character, and build your colony ship it is better than the iconians can produce. Seems to be problamic with wealthy, and inventive. I heard ancient, wealthy, synthetic are also over powered. Havnt played them just heard.

Synthetic needs more ship construction techs.

Some of the events need balancing with some races like population penalties to yor.

It would be nice like in the example of engines where if i pick an engine if you remove that choice to pick it again, so i dont waste my time picking something i already have.

In cases of mercenaries, and some colonization events instead od starting me out really powerful let me level up to it. Ie hypergate core start out with maybe 5 parsecs per turn, and maybe working up to 15 per turn after so many levels maybe based on how many turns in the game.

1. The Dread Lords could use a buff, they are not as dangerous as they were in GC2. Also looking in their file I see they use the old tech tree rather than the new one.

2. The UP resolution Interstellar War Fine lasts for 0 turns. Also I think we should have access to all unlocked resolutions as chairman not 3 random ones. And defying a vote should invalided the resolution but the civs that defied should just leave the UP.

3. Since the changes to minors the Malevolent trait Awe 2 is useless now.

4. The shipyard mission Treasure Hunt needs to be nerfed. Tourism and trade routes could use a boost.

5. The construction costs of Train Legion, Recruit Spy and Recruit Citizen could be reduced, while the cost of ships could be increased a little.

6. The projects Aid Economy and Aid Research could use a boost, maybe instead of a fixed reward amount they convert some social construction to which a bonus from research/wealth is added.

7. The AI doesn't use Commanders.

8. Here's a neat trick to teach the AI, you can find an opponent's colonies by following the trail of a trade route.

Many mercenaries have bad combat roles. Ships with support effects set to escorts, combat ships set to support etc. This changes many of them to either capital or support. I'd have made more capital but I can't get around the rules that small and tiny ships can't be capitals.Also, Crusade changes weapons a lot and left the old prototype weapons actually useless. Many merc ships that advertised "powerful prototype weapons" actually had the worst weapons. So I changed the power and/or the resource cost of prototypes to try and restore their old role of powerful but inefficient early-mid game weapons.

The Raptor is an interceptor.The Nail is an assault. Also gets the correct bonus hitpoints that makes it equal to a medium ship.The Sabre is an assault.The Bludgeon is an assault.The Fist of the Setting Suns is a capital.The Elembrial is a capital.The Praxis is a capital.The Retribution is a capital.Hivebase One is support.The Viper is a capital.The Bitte is support.Safety In Numbers is support.The Heptium is support.The Gestalt is support.The Erragis is a capital. Also it gives its kinetic damage resistance to the whole fleet as stated in its description.The Sidrat is support.The Compact is support.The Straisor is support.The Lutitia is support.The Linked Aerie is support.The Excruciator is a capital. Also it gets an attack and defense bonus of 25% instead of a flat 0.25 bonus.The Fissure is a capital. Also gets the logistics reduction it was missing, and an attack bonus of 25% instead of a flat 0.25 bonus.The Sickle gets an attack, range, and move bonus of 25% instead of a flat 0.25 bonus.The Collective is a capital. Also gets an attack bonus of 25% instead of a flat 0.25 bonus.The Helmder is a capital. Also its jamming bonus goes to the whole fleet as stated in its description.The Shaout gets an attack bonus of 50% instead of a flat 0.5 bonus.The Hermitage get and attack bonus of 25% instead of a flat 0.25 bonus.The Cixma is a capital.The Wraith is a capital. Also gets an attack bonus of 25% instead of a flat 0.25 bonus.The Pewpewpewpew gets the 100 bonus hitpoints stated in its description.

The Prototype Laser now has 10 power, costs 2 elerium, and is available at Matter Disruption.The Prototype Antimatter missile now has 16 power and costs 4 antimatter.The Prototype Durantium Driver now costs 3 durantium instead of 12.

The passive increases to ship range you get from technology seem to be in the wrong order. Not counting the ones from specialization tech, the first two are five and ten, and then one and one. On smaller maps a 15 range bonus makes most life support components unessessary. And by the time the +1 range passive come along you'll likely have dealt with range issues with starbases or bigger ships with more life support and one extra tile of range is trivial.

If the AI goes after more anomalies, then we need more anomalies. They are easter eggs that make the game fun. With a lot of protected anomalies, there could be a cold war with the AI, fighting with both the AI and the anomalies themselves to get them all.

On Tiny maps, there are tons of them; but on Ludicrous, there are hardly any as it is.